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In most the backward fruit of tedious experience,
In him the early acquisition of undissipated youth.
He served the court several years:
Abroad in the auspicious reign of Queen Anne,
At home, in the reign of that excellent Prince K. George the First.
He served his country always,
At court independent,
At every age, and in every station:
This was the bent of his generous soul,
This was the business of his laborious life.
Public men, and public things,
He judged by one constant standard,
The true interest of Britain;
He made no other distinction of party,
He abhorred all other:
Gentle, humane, disinterested, beneficent,
He created no enemies on his own account:
Firm, determined, inflexible,
He feared none he could create in the cause of Britain.
Reader,
In this misfortune of they country, lament thy own:
For know
The loss of so much private virtue
Is a public calamity.
Almost at the end of the north east walk
is a monument against the Abbey wall to the
memory of the Rev. Mr. William Laurence,
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the inscription on which is remarkable for
its quaintness, and is as follows:
With diligence and trust exemplary,
Did William Laurence serve a Prebendary;
And for his pains, now past, before not lost,
Gain'd this remembrance at his master's cost.
O! read these line again, you seldom find
A servant faithful, and his master kind.
Short-hand he wrote, his flower in prime did fade,
And hasty death short hand of him hath made.
Well couth he numbers, and well measur'd land,
Thus doth he now that ground whereon we stand,
Whereon he lies so geometrical,
Art maketh some, but thus will Nature all.
Ob. Dec. 28. 1621. Ætat. 29.
Henry the Seventh's Chapel. As this is
a separate building from Westminster Ab-
bey, we did not think proper to confound
it with the other chapels; and as it is joined
to the Abbey, we did not chuse to render
it so distinct an article as it would have
been, had we given it the place it would
have demanded in the order of the alpha-
bet. It is to be examined at the same
time with that edifice, and we have follow-
ed the example of the architect in uniting
them.
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